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Publishing | Sales of comics, graphic novels and magazines to comic stores declined slightly in 2010, slipping 3.5 percent from 2009, according to a year-end report released Thursday by Diamond Comic Distributors. John Jackson Miller’s estimate places the North American market at between $410 million and $420 million, down from the 2008 peak of $437 million.

Marvel again emerged as the top publisher, leading the market in both dollar and unit sales. May’s Avengers #1 was the top-selling periodical, followed by X-Men #1, Blackest Night #8, Siege #1 and Blackest Night #7. As expected, The Walking Dead and Scott Pilgrim dominated the graphic novel and trade paperback list, taking eight of the Top 10 spots (the remaining two went to the Kick-Ass premium hardcover and Superman: Earth One). [Diamond Comic Distributors]

Comic-Con | San Diego City Council president, and avowed comic fan, Tony Young wants to add a parade to the 2012 Comic-Con International schedule, one similar to what organizers of Atlanta’s Dragon Con began in 2002 (that parade now draws more than 2,000 participants): “The bottom line is San Diego needs to let its hair down a little. We can get so tied up in some of these major issues, which of course are important, but to be a big city you have to have great events and you have to let down your hair some. I want to see the mayor in his Batman costume that I know he has tucked in the back of his closet somewhere and I want to see him leading the parade.” [The San Diego Union-Tribune]

Publishing | Stephen Totillo insists that publishers are taking the wrong approach to selling comics on the iPad: “Shopping for comics on the iPad should feel risk-free. I can type in Keith Giffen’s name and see if the great super-hero comics writer has some old classic I didn’t know existed and buy all the issues. I don’t want to hesitate. But when I start developing a taste for the writing of a guy named Nick Spencer and can only find some half-finished mini-series that cost $2 and bear no indication in the app shop if the rest of the issues will ever come out, all I see is risk. It’s easy to stay away.” [Kotaku]

Retailing | Mary Schmich reports on the closing of the Borders location on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, which means “the city’s premier shopping street will be without any bookstore for the first time in decades.” [Chicago Tribune]

Publishing | Dark Horse and DC Comics both have retooled their websites, the former more dramatically than the latter. [Dark Horse, DC Comics]